I saw some information about X11 no longer being part of Mountain Lion, ...

This is somewhat incorrect. While it's true Apple is no longer developing their own version of X11, if you run an app that needs it, Mountain Lion will ask you if you want to install it - and if you say yes, it grabs XQuartz for you. It's still seamless.

Just want to let people know that I recently tried the Roxio Tivo Transfer tool again and it seems to be working for me under Mtn Lion (I accidentally launched it and was surprised to see it working, since it's been broken since the last 2 OS X updates). So if you have it installed, you might give it a try again.

If you're willing to be adventurous (and maybe compile a program or two) I'd be willing to supply the program I use to do transcoding on my Mac. You'll need tivodecode, AtomicParsley, MPEG Streamclip, and Handbrake (HandbrakeCLI, actually). All of those are free (but MPEG Streamclip needs a $20 library from Apple). PM me if you're interested.